Therefore we always meet Himbas and Victorian Herero women who wait for tourists along the main roads. You can take a picture of them for a little tip. But some of our group mates are considered about taking them their dignity by doing that. At the same time that’s of all things the only possibility for the Himbas to earn the dollars they need for life, without giving up their culture. That is why there is a poster in the museum of Swakopmund on which they explain their situation: “You think our children need school. But we think, school is taking us our children.”

After we have passed some little groups or single Africans, we finally stop with a Himba family.
On the photo-question they answer (of course) “Yes” and we should give them ten Namibian dollars (about one Euro) for it. It is impressing for me that the family finds the right photo position with our much words or orders and it is just as we’ve seen it already on photos from colonial times before. It is as if the first photographers of South Africa told them once and they kept it the same way till today.

Of course it feels a bit strange when you jump out of the bus – just as in the media – take your picture for some minutes long and then you get away immediately again. That is how we feel. It could also be possible that it feels more ethnical correct, if you first talk to them about different things. But on the other hand, the women come to us with the hope to earn some Namibian dollars. And I think in this case they prefer a bus that makes a short stop and leaves a large amount of money behind and vanishes soon again to a day full of long conversations with foreign people and a hardly full tip box.
And in fact, you don’t have to shoot them that attractive as you can unfortunately see it always and always again on postcards.

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